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 Krishan
Kant was born on February 28, 1927, at Village Kot Mohammed Khan, Tehsil
Taran Taran, District Amritsar, Punjab, in a family of freedom fighters.
His father, Lala Achint Ram was a Member of the Constituent Assembly and
later Member of Parliament. He was a prominent Congress leader of Punjab
and a true Gandhian, a pillar of the Bhoodan movement in Punjab. He was
one of the first three Life Members of the Servants of the People
Society, an order of life members, founded by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921
and inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi...
After completing M.Sc. (Technology) from the Banaras Hindu University,
Krishan Kant worked as a scientist with the Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research, New Delhi. He took active part in the ‘Quit India’
Movement of 1942 while he was a student at Lahore and was arrested
alongwith other members of his family. He was a Member of the Rajya
Sabha from 1966 to 1977 and subsequently Member of the Lok Sabha till
1980.
As a Member of Parliament, he made a significant contribution in the
fields of Foreign Policy, Defence Policy, Land Reforms, Freedom of the
Press and Electoral Reforms. He was Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary
Committee for the first legislation on Environment in India known as the
Prevention of Water Pollution Bill. He was also the Secretary of the
Indian Parliamentary and Scientific Committee of which Jawaharlal Nehru
was the president and Lal Bahadur Shastri the chairman. He was editor of
a quarterly journal “Science in Parliament”.
He was a life member of the Servants of the People Society and chairman
of its Punjab Branch. He was chairman, Committee of Railway Reservations
and Bookings from 1972 to 1976. A strong protagonist of India going
nuclear, he was a member of the Executive Council of the Institute of
Defence Studies and Analysis.
He held prominent posts in the Congress party and later in the Janata
party. He was a member of the A. I. C. C. and secretary of the Congress
Parliamentary party as well as of the executive committee for a number
of years. He was the founding general secretary of the People’s Union of
Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights, founded in 1976 of which
Jayaprakash Narayan was the president. He held a national seminar
against the 49th Amendment of the Constitution brought forward by the
Government during the Emergency.
He was an advocate of integrating science and spirituality and was a
member of the committee founded by the Sarva Seva Sangh. He was a member
of the board of management of the Gandhian Institute of Studies,
Varanasi, formed by Jayaprakash Narayan. He was a connoisseur of Urdu
poetry and a prolific writer having contributed profusely to prominent
dailies and periodicals on issues relating to national and international
politics, culture and science policy.
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